“Our focus in 2022 will be in the areas of work, finance, retail, and business”

TotalSoft witnessed a ‘steady evolution’ in 2021 and aims to attract new talents in its teams in 2022.

“I would characterize 2021 with a single word – opportunity. For us, as an industry, as a society, any kind of crisis accelerates innovation. As Plato said, „necessity is indeed the mother of invention,” and in 2020-2021 I felt it deeply,” Gorkem Tursucu, CEO TotalSoft told The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“Digitization has been the new goal for most companies and, of course, we have had to find solutions to respond quickly and efficiently to all these requests. That’s why we used a „two speed” strategy – on one hand we focused on supporting companies that needed fast solutions to adopt remote work, on the other hand we set some clear long-term objectives considering global trends.”

COMMITMENT TO PERFORMANCE | BUSINESS EVOLUTION, PROJECTS, PERFORMANCE, FIGURES  

How would you describe the evolution of your company in 2021?

“We had a steady evolution, and we expect to reach the target for this year. In this perspective, we continued to attract new talents in our teams which has become a constant effort. In fact, today we have over 70 open positions in TotalSoft and I think this says a lot about our growth and development strategy.

I would characterize 2021 with a single word – OPPORTUNITY. For us, as an industry, as a society, any kind of crisis accelerates innovation. As Plato said, „necessity is indeed the mother of invention,” and in 2020-2021 I felt it deeply.

Digitization has been the new goal for most companies and, of course, we have had to find solutions to respond quickly and efficiently to all these requests. That’s why we used a „two speed” strategy – on one hand we focused on supporting companies that needed fast solutions to adopt remote work, on the other hand we set some clear long-term objectives considering global trends.

Thus, in the short term we have developed and implemented solutions such as chatbots, electronic signatures integrated in the operational flows, continuous feedback, web origination for financing requests, self-checkout for the retail area, etc.

In the long run, we focused on integrating new trends such as work from home, fluid workforce or creative economy in our solutions, and we opened our solutions to the software developer community, offering open-source products. In addition, we continued to open Charisma EveryWare platform to third-party solutions integration, in order to digitize and automate the workflows of our customers.”

STRATEGY & VISION | RETHINK STRATEGY & PRIORITIES

What challenges have you faced as a CEO/ leader during 2021?

“This new crisis is just one of many in my 27 years of activity, but I overcame them with my head held high and many lessons learned. I think it’s all about perspective and how you get to the core of what a customer really needs because he will continue to invest in IT, even during a crisis, if he is convinced that it will increase his profitability.

However, this year we were mostly concerned with the health and safety of our colleagues, with providing a safe work environment. In addition, we felt again the lack of qualified resources in the market, which required caution in taking over new projects.

Of course, the new and unpredictable scenarios generated by the pandemic added pressure on the teams while trying to stay ahead of the game rather than simply react to the new market reality. Even before the pandemic, we started a process to help us increase the level of employee autonomy, encourage initiative, and increase the company’s agility in the market. This new process came in handy at this point and it was achieved by implementing a new working model – „a team of teams”. This has also a direct impact on customers, by improving their experience with TotalSoft products and services throughout the sales, implementation, post-implementation, and development processes.

Pushing for growth at a time when budgets may still be frozen means businesses are having to stay ahead of the competition by thinking outside the box, collaborating more with other like-minded companies, and measuring their progress so they can refine their approach as 2021 progresses. This is all for the greater good but creates substantial pressure to do better despite ongoing difficult circumstances.

Getting to know the new needs of your team and customers is vital because most of us have made some significant changes in our lives in the last 18 months. There is a need for systems whereby top leaders can ask for feedback from senior level staff to gain front-line insights. Boosting social media presence may also help to get to know your clients and consumers better.

Increased emphasis on employee wellness at first glance may feel like a drain on the business but a strong emphasis on prioritising good health is not only good for the individual, but the business and company culture.”

PEOPLE & COMMUNITY | FOCUS ON SAFETY, SOCIAL APPROACH, LEVERAGE THE POWER OF COMMUNITY

“In terms of CSR, our focus was always on supporting education and performance where financial resources are scares. In 2021, we had a campaign to support paralympic athletes attending international competitions and even the Paralympic Games in Tokyo. The fact that some of the few Romanian paralympic athletes participating to such renowned events are TotalSoft employees, was definitely a reason to get really excited about this project.

Also, related to this campaign, we extended our support to all people with disabilities eager to develop new skills and start a career in IT. We opened job positions and we promoted them with the help of our colleagues with disabilities that talked about their own experience in TotalSoft.”

KEEN ON GREEN | SUSTAINABLE, GREENER, COMMUNITY & ENVIRONMENTALLY-FOCUS

“I believe that our entire activity is a green initiative because we help companies digitize workflows and optimize their activity. In the end, this always leads to a better use of resources or a drastic reduction in waste. Some simple examples are the solutions we developed these past years regarding chatbots, electronic signatures integrated in the operational flows, continuous feedback, web origination for financing requests, etc, all of them creating a paperless environment and optimizing other use of materials.”

DIGITAL DNA | GRASPING TECH, DIGITAL INNOVATION, CUSTOMER -DRIVEN, BUILDING NEW BRIDGES

“We work with top 500 companies in Romania and not only. It’s clear that our digitisation projects have a direct impact not only for our customers, but for each of us, in our daily life. For example, every time someone is shopping in a retail store at the mall, has 60% chances to interact with our ERP solution – Charisma. Similarly, 27% of the entire industrial turnover in Romania is generated with the help of Charisma and in average, each of us had at least one medical analysis processed with our medical solution.

Therefore, major projects are never missing from our portfolio, some of the most important focusing on new trends in digitisation and tech. For example, this year we implemented the web origination solution which digitizes the onboarding flow for leasing and credit companies, we also implemented our self-checkout solution for major retailers, we extended our chatbots to assist HCM and ERP users, etc.”

What trends do you anticipate for this year?

“Our strategy for the next year is built considering major global trends which were synthesized from an extensive research of 50+ recent public reports. We considered more than 10 major trends in all areas of our lives such as work, entertainment, planet, health, finance, etc., and much larger number of micro trends.

However, our focus will be in the areas of work, finance, retail, business and the first steps were already made. For example, solutions to ease Work from Home, Fluid Workforce, Creative Economy, Diversity & Inclusion, are part of our core strategy. AI for interviews or employee support, electronic signature in business workflows, chatbots are just some examples of how technology can meet new business needs.”

2021 IN 3 KEY WORDS

“Opportunity, Innovation, Flexibility.”

2022 IN 3 KEY WORDS OR MORE

“Every moment is a new beginning.”